Mark Shapiro

There was a passing reference
to Mark Shapiro in The Wall Street Journal last month. An excerpt from a book
about the Walt Disney Co.’s dysfunctional upper management briefly mentioned
him as the “rising star at ESPN” who was up for a job with ABC on
the entertainment side last year.

Mark
Shapiro

• Age: 34

• Title: Executive
vice president, programming and production

• Company: ESPN

• Education: B.S.,
political science and communication, University of Iowa, 1992

• Family: Wife,
Kim; sons Jack, 4, and Jeffery, 1

• Career: Interned
at NBC in New York while in college; moved to Los Angeles to be assistant
producer for David Michaels, Al Michaels' brother; moved to ESPN to become
a production assistant on the "Jim Rome Show"; promoted to producer within
six month; later was producer on the ESPN show "Up Close"; moved to Connecticut
after being named head of production for the "SportsCentury" series in 1997;
named vice president and general manager of ESPN Classic in January 2000;
named senior vice president of programming in August 2001; added production
responsibilities in September 2002; launched ESPN's first scripted drama,
"Playmakers," in 2003

• Last book read: "DisneyWar" by James B. Stewart

• Last movie seen: "Ray"

• Greatest achievement: My two children

• Greatest disappointment: Steve Bartman

• Fantasy job: Novelist

• Executive most
admired: Former General Electric CEO Jack Welch

• Business advice: Inspire commitment and demand accountability.

It was no secret then,
reported in Variety and USA Today. And it’s still no secret that Shapiro
may end up being a Hollywood hotshot some day.

But to understand Shapiro’s
career path — to this point, and his next step — one has to understand
the singular thing that drives him.

And he loves to plunge
his hands into the mixing bowl, to be not just the guy who green-lights projects,
but the guy who molds and shapes them.

“Being hands-on with
content and having constant creative freedom — that’s what keeps me
here, keeps me attentive and challenged,” Shapiro said. “One day it’s
negotiating with the NFL or MLB, the next day it’s trying to figure out
how to reinvent ‘SportsCenter.’”

He throws himself into
the minutiae that can be the difference between good television and great television.
Turn on any of ESPN’s seven domestic channels and you’re probably
seeing a piece of Shapiro without even knowing it. Maybe it’s the background
decorations on the set of “Baseball Tonight,” or a racy piece of dialogue
on “Tilt.”

Of ESPN’s 4,000 employees,
2,300 are in departments headed by the 34-year-old Shapiro. So you’d think
he would just delegate seemingly trivial things.

But in planning meetings
for the new show “ESPN Hollywood” last month, Shapiro was involved
in every element, from picking the on-air talent and negotiating their contracts,
to assembling 50 camera teams around the country, even to dropping the name
of someone who would make a good stagehand.

This was squeezed in between
negotiating sessions with the NFL, Major League Baseball and the Australian
Open.

It’s a constant juggling
act. But one of Shapiro’s defining qualities, said TWI senior vice president
Bob Horowitz, is that when he gives someone his attention, he gives his complete
attention. For five minutes or an hour or however long a call or meeting lasts,
he will focus completely on the matter at hand and probably make a quick decision.

“He says no more often
than he says yes. But I can’t recall a time he ever said no after waiting
a week or two,” Horowitz said. “A lot of executives will say, ‘Can
you send me something?’ because they’re afraid to say no, or they’re
not sure of themselves. With Mark it’s boom — ‘No’ or ‘Yes,
I want to do it.’”

Shapiro’s abrupt negotiating
style is tough for some people to handle, especially for industry veterans 20
years his senior.

But ESPN President George
Bodenheimer has put enormous trust in Shapiro and constantly added to his responsibilities.
In 1997, at only 26, Shapiro was put in charge of ESPN Classic’s “SportsCentury”
series. He was handed the reins to all of Classic at the age of 29. Next he
was put in charge of the ESPN Original Entertainment project. Then came the
most important step of all, as he leapfrogged some of the very executives who’d
groomed him and was named ESPN’s head of programming in the summer of 2001,
at age 31.

He was told to build ESPN’s
lagging ratings. And he did, for three straight years. During that span he also
was put in charge of all production.

The next challenges for
Shapiro are more difficult to define. They’ll likely come not in giant
heaps of new responsibility, but brick by brick.

He wants to develop a new
nightly show for ESPN. He wants to break ESPN2 out of the shadow of the flagship
network. The new channels, like ESPN Deportes and ESPNU, are blank canvasses
to paint on.

But there isn’t a
clear next step for Shapiro at ESPN, and that’s one of many reasons people
speculate where he’ll end up next. His contract with ESPN has about 18
months left, and many think he’ll take on something even bigger when that
is up, inside or outside the Walt Disney Co.

It’s a touchy subject,
one he addresses diplomatically.

“I’m very loyal
to ESPN, and I’m very happy here,” he said. “I’m grateful
for the support and creative freedom I’ve gotten. Let the chips fall where
they may. You have to be able to count on coming to work every day and being
energized by what you do. Today, I can.”

FORTY
UNDER 40 HALL OF FAME

“I have been in the
industry for 20 years. I have met nearly everyone that is supposed to be the
real deal or the total package, and I have never met anybody that puts it all
together like this young guy. He’s just got it.”

Charlie Besser, CEO, Intersport

“He’s programming
into the culture. He’s a younger guy and he gets what younger sports fans
are looking for. That’s one of the things that’s caused ESPN to step
up.”

Kevin O’Malley, sports television consultant

“He’s one of the
sharpest minds in television that I know. We don’t always see eye to eye,
but I respect what he’s done at a place many people thought had seen its
best days.”

Lou Oppenheim, CEO, Headline Media Management Inc.

“What I think gets
lost by some people is how effective a businessman he is. He knows what he wants
in every negotiation. Knows what’s important to him and what’s not,
which enables him to get to a deal very quickly. It’s not always the outcome
we want, but we know where we stand with him.”